Well, after that doozy of an elimination, it’s back to the grind. Just one more of you won’t make the merge.

We obsessed over this week’s challenge, rotating ideas in and out, until finally I landed on this one. It’s called Meeting of the Mimes mostly because I love the word “mimes.”

Your task is to write a scene of 200-500 words with two characters. Something major is happening here; a change-of-life, a conflict, a big event. By the end of the piece, one of the two characters will be in a much better position than he or she was at the beginning, and the other will be in a much worse position (on whatever scale you like). Oh, and one other thing: neither of them will do any talking.

The lack of dialogue can be the result of anything you want, other than the characters being deaf or mute. The cleverer the reason for the silence, the better. Additionally, just to be clear, you can’t mention in the prose that the characters are speaking, either. The entire scene will take place with no words between them.

Just so it doesn’t get lost, let me reiterate the bit about one’s life/situation is much better at the end of the scene and the other’s is much worse (whether these characters are allies or adversaries). I’m very interested in that bit. (Beau’s edit: and that part was my idea).

Cheers, Survivors. I’m excited for this one (though, admittedly, a little saddened that I won’t get to see one from Andrew).